The two dogmas of empiricism are rooted in the verification theory of meaning and meaning itself. Analyticity I have previously discussed, but here I want to discuss the other dogma of reductionism. Quine ultimately rejects meaning and rejects both dogmas. Reductionism, specifically radical reductionism, is the belief that “every meaningful statement is held to be translatable into a statement (true or false) about immediate experience” (Quine). Reductionism is generally the belief that statements of one kind are translatable into statements of other kinds. It is often thought in reductionism that one translation is confirmed or accepted as true (or later as the best). Quine rejects this dogma again by rejecting meaning. The verification theory of meaning of logical positivism is rejected because of the rejection of meaning. If the verification theory of meaning is rejected reductionism is rejected because one translation cannot be reduced down. Meaningful statements being able to be reduced down into statements about immediate experience cannot really be true because of the lack of ability to understand meaning. Reductionism is simply is the translation between linguistic frameworks possibly from meaningful statement to statements about immediate experience. Reductionism carries the need to confirm a translation by verification of meaning. Quine rejects this: “My present suggestion is that it is nonsense, and the root of much nonsense, to speak of a linguistic component and a factual component in the truth of any individual statement” (Quine). To ultimately simplify, reductionism is rejected by Quine because of his rejection of meaning (just like analyticity is rejected).

The main thing I want to do here is keep talking about Quine’s discussion of meaning and reductionism, and talk about philosophers partaking in reductionism in the early to mid 20th century. I think I am understanding reductionism and Quine’s rejection, but if I miss something please let me know.

Above is Bertrand Russell. In 1914 he published Our Knowledge of the External World which had Hard and Soft Data in it. Hard and Soft Data presented logic and sense data as the two hardest hard data as he presented soft and hard data based on logically and psychologically derivative and primitive. In this essay he presented sense data (as Moore and Royce did before him). While having his logic and sense data, he claimed that a process of reconstruction would be taking place from here on out. This reconstruction was the reconstruction of the language of physical objects into language of sense data. Physical objects are complicated when seen and to philosophically and epistemologically understand physical objects better, this reconstruction was presented by Russell. This is a form of reductionism because physical objects language has meaning, while sense datum language is based on immediate experience. I have exemplified these languages before, but physical object language would be exemplified by saying “I am seeing a red marker before me” and sense datum language would be exemplified by saying ” I see an elongated cylindrical red patch, with some black patches inside.” This is a very early form of this reductionism Quine rejects.

Another philosopher and scientist taking up a reductionism is, above, Rudolf Carnap. In Der Logische Aufbau der Welt , Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis, and Empiricism Semantics and Ontology, Carnap’s quest for reductionism while granting the analytic is shown. In the Aufbau and even the Elimination of Metaphysics Carnap has a desire to uphold a stricter set of linguistic frameworks where the correct framework is searched for. Looking for a correct framework is not upheld in his 1950 Empiricism Semantics and Ontology. The previous linguistic frameworks of the 1928 Aufbau are presented in the verification conditions including meaning. This is the build up from observation statements and protocol statements to thing language and physics language while accepting a geometry and a physics. Carnap’s reductionism is accepted in mainstream logical positivism at the time. From that point Otto Neurath comes along and revises the protocol statements of Carnap’s verification conditions and the buildup of confirmation. Moritz Schlick later accepts his own reductionism.

In Empiricism Semantics and Ontology, logical positivism has sort of gone down from its peak, while Carnap and A.J. Ayer are both still trying to keep old positivist techniques. In this essay Carnap really softens his die hard reductionism, yet he still maintains a reductionism. He states that a plethora of linguistic frameworks are to be accepted while not accepting a metaphysical doctrine at the same time. He maintains that a tolerance of linguistic frameworks is to be had while being cautious and evaluative of the frameworks presented. Unlike in the Elimination of Metaphysics and the Aufbau, in Empiricism Semantics and Ontology Carnap states that the framework that works best is the one to be accepted instead of the framework that is correct. This is still a ‘subtle’ reductionism.

Above is Moritz Schlick. He was the leader of the Vienna Circle and an influence in logical positivism. Taking into understanding Carnap (Empiricism Semantics and Ontology had not happened yet note) and Neurath and their influences on the verification theory of meaning, he had his own idea of it in his Foundation of Knowledge. He advocated a similar reductionism to Carnap and Neurath by keeping observation statements at the bottom of the whole thing, which become protocol statements (partly statements about sense data), which can be translated into thing language statements, physics language statements, and theoretical language statements. That statement can have a prediction made from it, and may or may not be confirmed. All of this grounded to the side in experience. This shows the reductionism because of how all of it is able to be reduced to statements about immediate experience.

A.J. Ayer is another philosopher advocating reductionism specifically because he advocates ‘cash value’ translations between sense datum language and physical object language. He does so in Phenomenalism and his expanded theory of perception.

I did not mention Neurath because all he spoke to was Carnap’s supposedly wrong understanding of the protocol statements.

Statements being able to be reduced down, or translated between each other is implying that most statements have meaning. This is what Quine uses to reject reductionism. The verification of meaning is involved here because it is implied that most statements have meaning and can be verified that way. After contemplating meaning more, I am thinking that we all grant meaning quickly, but I really do not think there is meaning. These languages each have their own set of rules of logic because rules of logic can be proven wrong and verified from one statement to the next. Because of this variation of logical rules I think that meaning is granted, yet no real justification for it is presented.

I think I have come to a general opinion about Quine’s rejection of the two dogmas.

I think I understood everything, and talked about everything correctly, but if I did not please tell me so I do not look foolish. Thanks again for the support.

I have previously discussed Wittgenstein’s book On Certainty that he wrote towards the end of his life, where he gets his frustration out mostly by correcting Moore’s essay Proof of an External World (and A Defense of Common Sense). I am looking at Moore’s essay and looking at beginning propositions of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and thinking about their arguments. What Moore’s essay ultimately boils down to is him saying that he can know things without proving them. He bases that upon his idea of rigorously proving things along with other things.

Moore begins by saying that he can prove the entire external world by saying “I have one hand here, and another here.” He says this and then says that what he said conforms to a rigorous proof. “I can prove now, for instance, that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, “Here is one hand”, and adding, as I make certain gesture with the left, “and here is another”. And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples” (Moore). He then states that what he just said was a “rigorous proof” for the external existence of 2 hands. He proceeds even further to state what qualifications for a rigorous proof are: “Of, course it would not have been a proof unless three conditions were satisfied; namely (1) unless the premiss which I adduced as proof of the conclusion was different from the conclusion I adduced it to prove”, so in short, the conclusion is different from the discussed premise,”….; (2) unless the premiss with I adduced was something which I knew to be the case, and not merely something which I believed but which was by no means certain, or something which, though in fact true, I did not know to be so;” in short you are certain about the premise, which certainty and knowing is the ultimate discussion about Moore’s paper, and I shall further discuss here later, “…and (3) unless the conclusion did really follow from the premiss” (Moore). So, to Moore, for a rigorous proof, the conclusion and premise must be different, you are certain of the premise, and the conclusion follows from the premise. If, in ones argument, you can satisfy these three requirements, to Moore, you have proven what you have been trying to prove.

Going on in the essay Moore talks about why his proof is good, and how proving that something existed in the past external world helps him with his present proof. All of this leads up to the final paragraph of the essay where Wittgenstein and others get most of their food for argument. I will simply cite it and discuss it thereafter:

“But another reason why some people would feel dissatisfied with my proofs is, I think, not merely that they want a proof of something which I haven’t proved, but that they think that, if I cannot give such extra proofs, then the proofs that I have given are not conclusive proofs at all. And this, I think, is a definite mistake. They would say: ” If you cannot prove your premiss that here is one hand and here is another, then you do not know it. But you yourself have admitted that, if you did not know it, then your proof was not conclusive. Therefore, your proof was not, as you say it was, a conclusive proof.” This view that, if I cannot prove such things as these, I do not know them, is, I think, the view that Kant was expressing in the sentence which I quoted at the beginning of this lecture, when he implies that so long as we have no proof of the existence of external things, their existence must be accepted merely on faith. He means to say, I think, that if I cannot prove that there is a hand here, I must accept it merely as a matter of faith – I cannot know it. Such a view, thought it has been very common among philosophers, can, I think, be shown to be wrong – though shown only by the use of premisses which are not known to be true, unless we do know of the existence of external things. I can know things, which I cannot prove; and among things which I certainly did know, even if (as I think) I could not prove them, were the premises of my two proofs. I should say, therefore, that those, if any, who are dissatisfied with these proofs merely on the ground that I did not know their premisses, have no good reason for their dissatisfaction” (Moore).

The entirety of this ending section of the paper refers to what one says when saying “I know.” His opposition says that one only knows when it is proven, and when premises cannot be proven, the whole conclusion is proven. Responding to all of these oppositions to his proving qualifications and to how he gauges how he knows something, he ends up referring to Kant’s statement that when one cannot prove something, one does not know it, and must resort to having mere faith. Thinking back to Kant’s discussion of noumena, we cannot know of their existence and we must understand that there are ways of understanding things beyond empirical observation. Kant talks about faith when introducing noumena in that noumena cannot be really known. Moore talks about Kant when defending his argument (not necessarily the part in Kant’s work about noumena) by saying that if he has faith in his right hand being there, he can still know it.

Using again the phrase “what this boils down to”, what this boils down to is that what can be proven (proven rigorously beyond what Moore defines as rigorously proving in that the premises are proven in different ways to help prove even more the ending conclusion) is known, and what cannot be proven can be known in a way less strict sense (not with all the logical proofs) where we have faith in it, yet it is not really strictly Wittgensteinian defined ‘known’, yet Moore thinks with faith, one can ‘know’ in all forms of the word what cannot be rigorously logically proven.

Kant thought that faith did not lead to proving or knowing an external thing, Moore thought that faith led still to knowing external things, and Wittgenstein overwhelmingly trampled on Moore’s opinion here with his book On Certainty. I think that when looking at these few arguments about what it means to ‘know’ anything, the word ‘know’ should be thought of and use in the strictest sense especially when trying to understand the arguments and formulate individual opinions on them. Moore thinks of ‘knowing’ something as not having consistent proof (in my opinion) but having faith in things such as that there is a right hand here. Kant believes in faith being there for minimal understanding, but it doesn’t denote ‘knowing’. Finally, in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty he makes the word know, knowing, knowledge and any other words like it to be as strict as possible.

Here are only a few propositions in the book’s entire discussion about knowledge and certainty that stomps on Moore’s argument:

” 14. That he does know takes some shewing.

15. It needs to be shewn that no mistake was possible. Giving the assurance “I know” doesn’t suffice. For it is after all only an assurance that I can’t be making a mistake, and it needs to be objectively established that I am not making a mistake about that.”

Wittgenstein goes on to cite Moore and say more things about his argument. One thing I want to make known about Wittgenstein’s argument is that he thinks that Moore’s use of know, knowing, and knowledge is redundant, repetitive, and does not help his overall argument. If you have a library near you, like a college library, it probably has a philosophy section and may have On Certainty by Wittgenstein, or if you have the means pick it up. To get Moore’s essay Proof of an External World go here: http://faculty.uml.edu/enelson/g%20e%20moore,%20external%20world.pdf I say that because there are many arguments that Wittgenstein specifically picks on from Moore’s essay, and there are many other things to think about and discuss besides the single point I am going to make from here on out, so if you want a more wholly picture of Moore’s opinion and Wittgenstein’s opinion, read the essay and read some of the book (since I do not think reading all of On Certainty is necessary and if you want to read a whole book of Wittgenstein read Tractatus Logic0-Philosophicus).

First of all, my opinion is that Moore’s proof of an external world and his qualifications for a proof that he used are faulty in actually making knowledge of external things. It all comes down to that Moore does not feel the need to prove his premises, and then he says that having faith is proof of external things, and it is knowing external things. I am a large holder of faith in things I have not empirically observed and proven, the only reason being that I have not found a way to prove their external existences beyond faith. Faith is similar but not equal to knowledge, and I think that when one says that faith equals knowledge, it is merely a cop out in that that person will not take further efforts to come up with logical proofs for what one has faith in.

Its hard to say how much proof there is in faith, and how much knowledge there can be had in any faith at its face value. This is because faith varies from what faith is had in, how the faith is had, and a plethora of other factors that go into faith in one thing. If I have faith in God, which I do, I feel like I have total knowledge about Him yet I do not have logical rigorous proofs for it. I feel like I have full knowledge because of my intimate and loving faith in Him, but I want to create a logical process for further proof of things others might not see but I still have faith in. Moore just says that faith equals knowing things external, but that leads to ridicule from logically sensible philosophers and people like Wittgenstein. This tells me that faith feels sufficient for knowledge to those who have faith in something external, but if we want to show others about this thing and prove it to others for the entire benefit for everyone and ourselves, we need a logical process to create a rigorous proof for things’ existences like God.

In the end, I hate to say this, but faith is not sufficient for true knowledge in its strictest sense. Moore is copping out philosophically when he says that faith is equal to knowledge. Wittgenstein isn’t really getting there either when he tramples on Moore’s argument rather than just removing a few things, polishing it, and building upon it.

I do not know what that logical process towards a rigorous proof of external things not empirically observed would be, but I think it should be something philosophers and logicians should progress toward. It would be nice to have logically rigorous proofs for noumena and God, or even monads and forms. Then metaphysics would be generally more accepted rather than rejected. This is a difficult thing to just say should happen, but I think it should have efforts put toward it rather than just saying that faith is knowledge.

To actually figure out how to prove external things that are phenomena or noumena, it is my opinion that our sensations should be analyzed more than they ever have been. I say this to mean that we should analyze sensations beyond just the six senses. I like to think of it in the way that we should look at our impressions (using Hume’s term in the Origin of Our Ideas). Impressions being things entering our perception with most violence and force. Impressions are what I take to be emotions, passions, feelings, and sensations. For example, I find an impression to be the event that one has a direct or indirect conversation with God. I have not had a direct one, but others I know have. An indirect one I have had is where I ask Him for something in particular to really help my horrible situation out. After not getting it for awhile and asking Him again, soon after, it immediately occurs and I immediately realize why He waited until now and why he put me in the problem initially. Along with this understanding, I would have amazing emotional feeling because I can feel the things that have happened before me, and I know from who they come. This is one example of an impression that I think should be examined further to get from faith in noumenal external things to actual knowledge in the Wittgensteinian sense.

I just think that faith does not denote knowledge even if it gives us real pure understanding.

I finally am going to begin to write more on here, as from here on out I will gradually have more time.

I am writing a paper about the absence of colors in material objects as another inference to not rely on our senses, and i am using G.E. Moore’s paper Introduction of Sense Data. There is a part where he discusses the three characteristics of sense data: color, size, and shape. He has different conclusions on each one, but the color is what I am interested in for my paper’s purposes.

To jump right into it, G.E. Moore states that color is the only one of the three things that can be thought to be a part of the material object that sets forth the sense data. Moore begins his discussion in the paper about the envelope and how everybody in different places of the room see a different color and a different image. The question that this poses is are all of those of the same envelope (along with other inferences and questions). “The colour might be supposed to occupy a part of that volume occupied by the envelope- one of its bounding surfaces” there after that is an indicator of a footnote, ” I should now say that any part of the surface of a volume is not a part of that volume, because it is not itself a volume” (Moore). Moore discusses mainly the presupposition that colors seen in objects exist as a part of the object that it is sensed with. The envelope (a material object) occupies a volume, and it is thought that the color of the envelope is a part of the volume of the whole volume that the envelope occupies. The footnote to the sentence states that a surface of a volume is not a volume anyway, so its not a part volume of the whole volume. So, if a color is seemed to be a part of a material object, how can it be a part if the surface is not a part of the volume? If I look at a yellow marker, I cannot prove that the marker is yellow, just that it looks yellow to me at that time and place.

Moore continues by stating the many different colors that one may see in one object, like the envelope. One holds it in the air in front of 10 people. Because of the light shining in from the windows, the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling, a slice of white light from the projector, and the shadows of people in the front row, let us say that the envelope being shown is exhibiting 9 different shades of yellow. Moore wonders (like others) if all of these colors are a part of the envelope. Moore thinks this not impossible, but highly unlikely. These 9 shades of yellow would not be able to be a part of one small object, in my opinion. If all 10 people in the room switched seats where each person sat in a general vicinity of the room, one shade of yellow would seem to move, and another shade of yellow would move to the spot of the envelope you immediately see. Moore does well in this part of the paper to prove that colors are not a part of the object they are seen in. My aim for the paper I plan on writing is to say that there aren’t any colors in reality at all, and colors are just manifestations of what our minds make of the real world.

One might also think that particles or atoms within an object make something the color that it is. Going back to my yellow marker, there are dyes in the plastic that encapsulate the sponge full of yellow ink. Dyes in objects being particles within it do not put color in objects. Dyes are particles within objects that merely change the way the object looks when certain kinds of light are reflected off it. A red dye being put in something only is done to make red appear when a few kinds of light are reflected off it.

My conclusion from all of this is that visual sense data is the most misleading thing one can rely on. I once was talking to an old instructor of mine from high school who was not discussing philosophy of any kind just certain kinds of photons in light. He said he went into a clothing store to get a few pairs of socks. Going into the store he sees a few pairs of socks he decides to purchase, and recognizes they are black ( the label of the socks were not big and he did not read the label at all). He buys them, walks outside and sees that he has purchased unwanted blue socks. So, are the socks black or blue? You can crap out some science about dies, spectra, photons, and other things but this instance disproves the idea that material objects have colors in them. Yes, its all light reflecting off particles in objects and dyes within objects, but for a simple color test put a bright object on the ground, like a yellow highlighter marker, make sure bright lights are on in the room, and stand over the marker so your shadow is over it. The color the marker now has is a dull darker yellow, that is not bright like it once was. Once again, without this silly test, turn all of the lights off and hold the marker, the marker is not yellow, but black. This I think is enough to say that material objects have no color in them.

In Moritz Schlick’s Structure and Content essay, in the section Inexpressibility of Content, Schlick states that one could not convey what green is to a blind man. A person with sight can see the many colors, but try to talk to someone and explain what yellow is. Yellow is the next color lighter than green. Whats green? It looks like the color of a frog? What color is a frog? and so on. The fact that we cannot express content (i.e. color) is good evidence to say that sense data is local, and often personal to small groups, or even 1 person. If sense data, and more specifically color, is so local how can it be real? When I discuss real, I mean discerning color from things like size and shape (referring back to Moore). If I was talking to a blind man like Schlick, and I wanted to tell him about this huge block of cheddar cheese in the Big House (Michigan stadium in Ann Arbor, MI), I could say there is a huge rectangle 100 feet high, and 24 feet wide, I could firmly draw the skinny rectangle on paper for the blind man to feel. He would feel the lines connecting and eventually envision a large skinny rectangle. Knowing, that there is a large skinny rectangle on the football field, I could not tell him it is orange. Even if he gained sight right there, he might see a light orange, while I see a darker shade. The way visual sense data is local like it is always I think makes it: 1) not a part of material objects, and 2) ambiguous in all forms of trying to define and explain it. Even if I say orange, one might ask, what shade. Then that person might say, that looks yellower to me. All of this means that there is no color in objects (or at all) , and what color people observe in sense data is ambiguous in the strictest sense of the word.

This is all granted that there are material objects anyway, which I also plan to address.

Thanks for the support. Tell me what you think, are there true colors in material objects?

After explaining sense data in the previous writing on Moore’s sense data, I feel it is necessary to address the forms of sense data that do not usually come about, and even may not even be connected to an object.

This is just a brief discussion about sense data’s objects that it comes from. When Moore introduced the sense datum he exemplified and explained most about the actual sense data, and little of where it comes from. Epistemology from Moore to Russell and on can lead to and often involve rejection of metaphysics and theology (like the Vienna Circle), making the relation between sense data and its material object not something searched for. I am concerned with both epistemology and metaphysics and where the sense data comes from concerns me more than the sense data itself mostly because the sense data itself is easy to understand, but its source is something difficult and ambiguous.

Moore even stated that sense data comes from a variety of sources that either may or may not have an object. After understanding Moore, the sources of sense data I state to exist are similar and almost equal. Sense data generates from one of these things: 1) material objects 2)redistribution of color without object 3) the mind’s images. I mainly am concerned with the third category in this brief discussion because I discussed sense data of material objects and redistribution of color in my previous writing about Moore’s sense data. My reason for having concern with the third category is because the first two categories exist because they reside with an outlining object. A tulip resides in category 1 because there is an outline to it that is the flower and the color within it (yellows and greens) are the sense data that is represented to our minds. The mind’s images do not work the same way and are wholly ambiguous in nature.

The mind is a complex entity and does many complex processes causing confusion within us by many ways of doing so. A mirage known to come before one thirsty and tired in a desert can create any image the mind chooses and we will believe the image to be a true object when really it is only imaginary. After not sleeping for days the same thing will happen. After taking certain harmful narcotics the same thing (in a more extravagant way) will happen. One with schizophrenia will have the same thing happen to him but in a more scary and different way. All of these things appear to us in the same form as sense data in that a tulip actually existing will look just as clear in color and shape as a miraged bottle off water. These pseudo-sense data being unusual are ambiguous and I know not what to think of them because of the fact that I know not where their sense data originates from.

I choose to equate a material object’s sense data with a hallucination or schizophrenic image because in both states of mind both look exactly the same in color and clarity. The only inference I can possibly make is that for hallucinations of all forms no sense data is present. After going through logic and epistemological contemplation, (I actually did go through a lot of thinking metaphysically even about it), I do not see any possibility that true sense data exists unless an object lies beneath.

No sense data can be perceived unless an object lies beneath.

I say this boldly and confidently because all hallucinations being compared to true object originated sense data are faulty and inconsistent. Sense data obviously exists when objects push the data strongly through consistency and clarity. Even though all hallucinations are always as clear and visible as object sense data, the hallucinations appear less frequently for the object it portrays and is very inconsistent. The hallucination can be clearly discerned from the object sense data. If we can see the clear distinction between real sense data and sense data of the hallucinative form, we can decide which is truthful and which is false. My philosophical statement is that the hallucinative form of sense data has no object behind it and therefore is false in nature and origin. The mind, however, is complex enough to deceive us with these sense data of the hallucinative form, and making this distinction is a must.

For this, it was necessary to speak only to sense data of the hallucinative form while a person is awake because when one is asleep it is easy to understand the state one is in because of clarity and usualness of the data being perceived. I felt the need to discuss the hallucinative sense data and to discern it from the true sense data Moore states to exist. We all have stayed up to late and seen something unreal, and some of us may have even taken a hallucinogen narcotic, and some of us may be (not myself) schizophrenics, so I felt it necessary to understand what is true amidst all our perceptions.

Thanks for the support. Longer writings on Deleuze, Berkeley, Locke, Heidegger and more to come in the near to more distant future.

Finally back to writing and thinking now. I was on a bit of a vacation for about a week from school, where I went fishing, just hung out, and just worked a bunch. Enough about my life, because one thing I loath is a blog talking about one’s life events that never lead toward a logical or philosophical concept or belief. This writing being my official return to activity here, is about G.E. Moore and questions and information in his Information of Sense Data. There is a particular question about sense data that I have interest in.

Sense data and sensations are two different things that Moore used to influence epistemological debates and thought. Sense data is the data our perceptive senses gather when seeing a material object. If one states to be seeing a seashell, the sense data about it would be things gathered by the senses. For example, sense data of observation of the shell would include patches of white and pink (color from sight), about as big as my head, and a jagged amorphous shape. Color is one that is important because of the fact that size and shape can be stated to be within the material object while color is only what our brain perceives of the object and what its surroundings causes it to appear to us. The sense data we have about a material object allow us to be able to draw a picture of it how we see it and be accurate. Sensation is Moore’s term for apprehending the sense data and is nothing of my concern about the relationship between the material object observed and the sense data that goes with it.

An early teacher of mine was talking one on one with me about the effects of light upon certain surfaces and used an example of when he went to a clothing store for specifically black socks. The store worker helped him with what he wanted and presented ‘black’ socks to my teacher. My teacher rebutted by saying that,”No, these socks are clearly blue. I need black socks.” The store worker came back with saying that those socks ‘are’ black socks, and they only appear blue because of the light bulbs in the ceiling producing light with fewer colors in its spectrum than most natural light. The light coming from the bulbs in the ceiling reflected off the socks making the socks appear to be blue, when really they are black. I might have gotten the colors in this story mixed up, but it is beside the point I strive to make, and it does not matter. What only matters is that in one setting the socks are one color , in another setting the socks appear a complete different color. If one thing can appear different in different settings, it leads me to question whether or not the sense data of an object will always coincide with the actual object. Furthermore, I think that sense data can easily overlap when material objects are in close proximity of each other making confusion because of how far sense data goes far away from the object it is derived from.

It is my imperative reason for this writing to state that I think sense data has very very little connection with the material object in question. And because of this, the sense data is not confined to certain things, and can become loose in shape, and often easily relocated away from the object it is assigned to. As I said before, I think sense data can overlap with other sense data, causing a lot of confusion. When sense data overlaps, and is confused, the object it is connected with is hard to discern. I find this true from personal observation of certain sense data that relocates from the object it supposedly comes from. Whether or not certain sense data comes from certain objects is something difficult, and almost impossible to figure out, but we can make suppositions about the matter. An example exemplifying the relocation of sense data is church windows with red glass in it having real sunlight shined through it projects a red patch on the wall of the inside of the church. This is a red patch among the wall of other sense data where the object does not relocate the sense data. The patch on the wall does not include an object, it only is sense data. Another example would be light shining on a person standing in a field, he casts what we call a shadow. It is a patch of darkness among lighter patches. The object of this sense data is upright and erect, while the sense data is laying flat on the ground. This clearly is relocation of sense data because when sense data is not relocated it is in the same spot as the object. Such as, a flower with red color, along with green surroundings. The color of the flower is in the same spot as the color, and is not relocated to other locations.

I present these things because the epistemological phenomenon we experience sometimes can distort and hold back our destination to understanding the world. The mind misconceives things, and even when it does not misconceive things the world is confusing because of the way our mind sees it. First, we may have difficulty understanding the world with our epistemological characteristics because of the fact that the material object (stated by Moore) cannot even be known to exist or seen. The only thing we know exists or see is the sense data. Second, we may have difficulty understanding the world because of how the sense data is not organized by any means. The sense data is somewhat sitting with its possible object, but often the sense data is relocated to further our quest for understanding. Sense data can be especially confusing concerning what object is where and associated with what sense data in an example where a man dyes some glass a green color, and holds the small piece of glass up to his cheek face to look at it. So the man’s face is not mostly covered, but a smaller patch of red exists amidst all the whiter patches (patches of color was Moore’s term to describe specific sense data). If the small piece of red glass was specifically over his nose, you would see all the beige skin color patches everywhere in the immediate area, and then in the middle you would see a reddish lighter nose. This is overlapping (not relocating) sense data because the nose before the red glass was a white beige skin color patch just like the rest of the face, but when the red glass is put over the nose, the nose’s sense data is no longer, but many questions are posed as to what object lies under the red glass, and what sense data would accompany it. I believe the sense data to overlap and relocate to be another part of our difficulty in understanding the world as specifically and purposely done by God when the creatum was created. Not to take a religious curve at the end of a big discussion on sense data. I have many epistemological questions and this is the beginning of my formal course towards epistemological understanding.